![\"Federal](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.incrediblecharts.com\/images\/2020\/2020-01-22-federaldeficit-unemployment.png?w=525&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\nI believe this warrants a separate post:<\/p>\n
The market is running on more stimulants than a Russian weight-lifter. Unemployment is near record lows but the US Treasury is still running trillion dollar deficits.<\/p>\n
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While the Fed is cutting interest rates.<\/p>\n
![\"Fed](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.incrediblecharts.com\/images\/2020\/2020-01-22-unemployment-ffr.png?w=525&ssl=1\")
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And again expanding its balance sheet. More than twelve years after the GFC. The blue line reflects total assets on the Fed’s balance sheet, mainly Treasuries and MBS, while the orange line (right-hand scale) shows how shrinking excess reserves on deposit at the Fed have helped to create a $2 trillion surge in liquidity in financial markets since 2009. Even when the Fed was supposedly tightening, with a shrinking balance sheet, in 2018 to 2019.<\/p>\n
![\"Fed](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.incrediblecharts.com\/images\/2020\/2020-01-22-fedassets.png?w=525&ssl=1\")
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The triple boost has lifted stock valuations to precarious highs. The chart below compares stock market capitalization to profits after tax over the past 60 years.<\/p>\n
![\"Market](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.incrediblecharts.com\/images\/2020\/2020-01-22-mcap-profitsaftertax.png?w=525&ssl=1\")
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Ratios above 15 flag that stocks are over-priced and likely to correct. Peaks in 1987 and 2007, shortly before the GFC, are typical of an over-heated market. The Dotcom bubble reflected “irrational exuberance” \u2014 a phrase coined by then Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan \u2014 and I believe we are entering a second such era.<\/p>\n
Recovery of the economy under President Trump is no economic miracle, it is simply the triumph of monetary and fiscal stimulus over rational judgement. Trump knows that he has to keep the party going until November to win the upcoming election, so expect further excess. Whether he succeeds or not is unsure but one thing is certain: the longer the party goes on, the bigger the hangover.<\/p>\n
William McChesney Martin Jr., the longest-serving Fed Chairman (1951 to 1970), famously described the role of the Fed as “to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going.” Unfortunately Jerome Powell seems to have been sufficiently cowed by Trump’s threats (to replace him) and failed to follow that precedent. We are all likely to suffer the consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I believe this warrants a separate post: The market is running on more stimulants than a Russian weight-lifter. Unemployment is near record lows but the US Treasury is still running trillion dollar deficits. While the Fed is cutting interest rates. And again expanding its balance sheet. More than twelve years after the GFC. The blue … <\/p>\n